Electroacupuncture reduced arthritis-related bone damage by shifting joint macrophages toward a less inflammatory state and suppressing immune and cellular recycling pathways.
Researchers induced collagen-related arthritis in mice and treated them with electroacupuncture at two traditional acupuncture points. They examined knee inflammation, macrophage characteristics, bone and cartilage damage, blood gene activity, and proteins in synovial tissue using tissue staining, imaging, sequencing, mass spectrometry, and computational analyses.
Electroacupuncture reduced joint inflammation, synovial tissue invasion, cartilage and bone destruction, and the activity of bone-resorbing cells. It also lowered the proportion of inflammatory macrophages relative to repair-associated macrophages and suppressed toll-like receptor and autophagy-related signaling pathways linked to inflammatory joint damage.
